Surgeon Simulator CPR (Nintendo Switch) Review

Bringing the funny side to a more serious real-life job often works in video games. Surgeon Simulator CPR isn't a serious take on the job, and it's self-aware of the intentional, or unintentional laughs that come with performing operations. Starting off, the first operation requires performing a heart transplant, before it moves on to more advanced operations like double kidney, brain, and eye transplants. These have to be performed under light 'stress' settings, as each action causes the patient to lose blood. If the patient loses too much blood, then they die.

Surgeon Simulator CPR doesn't bother with a tutorial - it just throws new surgeons into the mix to encourage trial-and-error. Does the patient lose too much blood when cutting his rib-cage with a saw? Try using the hammer instead, while the scalpel can be used for the more sensitive areas to minimise blood loss. Trial-and-error is the best way to go about this, as messing up the procedure can lead to some funny results. While the single-player option is fine, Surgeon Simulator CPR is better experienced with a friend. Double the surgeons means double the chaos that goes on in the operating theatre, and of course it can be double the fun.

Unfortunately, much of the enjoyment quickly dissipates due to the poorly-implemented control scheme. The motion-controls are, quite simply, a disaster at times, with the simple act of trying to pick up a hammer being a lot harder than it needs to be. Playing in handheld without the motion control allows for better control over the on-screen hand, but not by much.

Surgeon Simulator CPR does a better job of simulating the claw machines often found at arcade centres. The on-screen hand is a perfect representation of the arcade machine claws that are unable to pick up the simplest objects, exposing itself as a flimsy piece of plastic that has no right being there. Often, the motion controls or even the joystick controls aren't "read" properly by the on-screen hand. Moving the hand left can see it rotate to be upside down, while pressing the button to pick up an item can take multiple tries.

Another huge problem with the controls is the constant glitches it causes. Trying to get a scalpel from in front of the cup caused the camera to get stuck on the patient's head, without being able to refocus it back onto the patient's body. The constant restarts that had to be done to get out of these situations of this broken system, ruins the overall entertainment factor.

Even after getting the on-screen hand to successfully pick up a hammer, the hand can drop it into the patient's body for no reason. Generally, the hand continues to hold an item until a button is pressed to let go - except this isn't always the case, and the hand just "feels like" dropping items at random. Again, think back to the claw machine analogy, where it drops the prize en route to the shaft.